Michael Frede (; 31 May 1940 – 11 August 2007) was a prominent

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researche ...

ancient philosophy This page lists some links to ancient philosophy, namely philosophical thought extending as far as early post-classical history (). Overview Genuine philosophical thought, depending upon original individual insights, arose in many culture ...

, described by ''

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'' as "one of the most important and adventurous scholars of ancient philosophy of recent times."

Education and career

Frede earned his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

in 1966 and worked there as an Assistant () from 1966 to 1971. He joined the faculty of the Philosophy Department at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

as an Assistant Professor (1971) and quickly rose to the status of full professor. From 1976 to 1991, he was a professor at the

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

Philosophy Department. He returned to Europe in 1991 and took the Chair in the History of Philosophy at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. In 1997-8 he returned to Berkeley to lecture on

free will Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actio ...

as the 84th visiting Sather Professor of Classical Literature; the resulting book was published posthumously. He retired from Oxford in 2005 and lived in

Athens, Greece Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

until his death in a drowning accident in 2007. He was a Member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of both the British Academy (elected 1994) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Selected works

*''Pradikation und Existenzaussage: Platons Gebrauch von "...ist..." und "...ist nicht..." im Sophistes'', 1967 *''Die Stoische Logik'', 1974 *''Galen. Three Treatises on the Nature of Science'' (co-edited with

Richard Walzer Richard Rudolf Walzer, FBA (14 July 1900 in Berlin – 16 April 1975 in Oxford) was a German-born British scholar of Greek philosophy and of Arabic philosophy. ''Education:'' Werner-Siemens-Realgymnasium, Berlin-Schöneberg; Frederick Willi ...

), 1985 *''Essays in Ancient Philosophy'', 1987 *''Aristoteles 'Metaphysik Z': Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar'', 2 vols (with Günther Patzig), 1988 *''The Original Sceptics: A Controversy'' (co-edited with

Myles Burnyeat Myles Fredric Burnyeat (1 January 1939 – 20 September 2019) was an English scholar of ancient philosophy. Early life and education Myles Burnyeat was born on 1 January 1939 to Peter James Anthony Burnyeat and Cynthia Cherry Warburg. He rece ...

), 1997 *''Rationality in Greek Thought'' (co-edited with

Gisela Striker Gisela Striker (born 1943) is a German classical scholar. She is Professor Emerita of Philosophy and Classics at Harvard University and a specialist in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. Education and career Striker was born and educated in Ger ...

), 1999 *''Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity'' (co-edited with Polymnia Athanassiadi), 2001 *''Aristotle's Metaphysics Book Lambda'' (co-edited with David Charles), 2001 *''A Free Will: origins of the notion in ancient thought'' (edited by

A. A. Long Anthony Arthur Long FBA (born 17 August 1937) is a British and naturalised American classical scholar and Chancellor's Professor Emeritus of Classics and Irving Stone Professor of Literature Emeritus, and Affiliated Professor of Philosophy and Rh ...

with a foreword by

David Sedley David Neil Sedley FBA (born 30 May 1947) is a British philosopher and historian of philosophy. He was the seventh Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Cambridge University. Early life Sedley was educated at Trinity College, Oxford where ...

), 2011 *''The Pseudo-Platonic Seventh Letter (Uehiro Series in Practical Ethics)'', (co-author with

) Oxford University Press 2015

References

External links

Obituary in ''Prolegomena'', April 2008

A full bibliography of Michael Frede's works (1962–2011)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frede, Michael Princeton University faculty Academics of the University of Oxford University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty 1940 births 2007 deaths University of Göttingen alumni German scholars of ancient Greek philosophy German male writers 20th-century German philosophers